Guild Wars 2

I would think your staff would have condition on it which would make it weak for DS. Can someone explain?

High weapon damage (not the skills, the weapon itself).
If you’re a power-oriented necro, its better to have a staff with high power/precision and switch to it when you activate DS to deal damage.

That question makes no sense….

I assume your asking why staff is ‘better’ for DS. Its due to the stat granted by wielding the staff, namely power (on certain staffs) it has nothing to do with condition damage

The benefit is still rather negligable

From what I can tell death shroud has it’s own weapon power so the staff has nothing to do with it…. It only gets the benefits of the stats on the weapon. If that’s not the case then it’s odd that I deal the same damage with the axe as the staff when in DS.

Dakiaris.2798:

From what I can tell death shroud has it’s own weapon power so the staff has nothing to do with it…. It only gets the benefits of the stats on the weapon. If that’s not the case then it’s odd that I deal the same damage with the axe as the staff when in DS.

Whats odd is that most people don’t know how the majority of Necro things work and will post on the forums about it, offering advice to everyone. Not aimed at you, just pointing it out in general.

Go into HoM and get Steady Weapons, like a dagger and a staff. Go into DS and hit a golem while swapping your weapons. You will see, that there is a damage difference between staff and the various other weapons, with them generally being lower. However, the damage difference is more or less negligible, which is why many people don’t see the difference, or wouldn’t recommend you getting staff just for this purpose.

Dakiaris.2798:

From what I can tell death shroud has it’s own weapon power so the staff has nothing to do with it…. It only gets the benefits of the stats on the weapon. If that’s not the case then it’s odd that I deal the same damage with the axe as the staff when in DS.

This is half right – you should think of Death shroud as a seperate weapon set. It’ll make it easier to process.

But there is a trait that gives life force for marks triggered (Which can be triggered by multiple targets – according to what people tell me). if thats what the OP is refering to – then thats why the staff would be good for DS. Personally i prefer a dagger.

DrXer.2918:

I would think your staff would have condition on it which would make it weak for DS. Can someone explain?

It’s a mixed bag and depends a lot on how you gear and trait. Personally I favor a condition build and use the staff to capitalize on the conditions dealt by the marks. However if you were to build for power overall, the staff might end up being an excellent DS weapon. Naturally it’d be optimal for a staff in that situation to have Power and Precision, but if you’re specced for the bleeds from crits then cond/Precision could work well too.

The staff’s base damage, regardless of the other stats, tends to make it a strong weapon for using Life Blast (DS#1) when compared to the necro’s other options (mostly because it’s a two-hander and one two-hander usually has higher base damage than an equivalent one-hander). On top of that the staff’s #1 attack is good for generating life force at long ranges, and as mentioned above if you trait to get life force from Marks then all the abilities on the staff generate life force. Even if you’re not built for condition damage, the marks themselves can deal moderate damage from the direct damage component, all of it AOE if timed well. It also has a field creator and a blast finisher which give the staff utility both by itself and when paired with allies, not to mention that all of the marks have an effect that its completely unaffected by condition damage and can be very useful in a fight (regen, chill & poison (for the heal reduction, not the damage), condition transfer, and fear).

The question to ask yourself is not “why is the staff good for DS?” Instead ask yourself, “is there any weapon that’s better?” Personally, I can’t think of one.

DrXer.2918:

I would think your staff would have condition on it which would make it weak for DS. Can someone explain?

Could you clarify: Do you mean is a staff a good weapon to have equipped when you enter DS — because it might enhance you during DS — or do you mean is a staff a good weapon to use a lot if you like to DS — for example because it might fill Life Force faster, or might leave marks which can trigger while you’re in DS, allowing you to “cast” spells other than the DS spells in some sense.

Druitt.7629:

DrXer.2918:

I would think your staff would have condition on it which would make it weak for DS. Can someone explain?

Could you clarify: Do you mean is a staff a good weapon to have equipped when you enter DS — because it might enhance you during DS — or do you mean is a staff a good weapon to use a lot if you like to DS — for example because it might fill Life Force faster, or might leave marks which can trigger while you’re in DS, allowing you to “cast” spells other than the DS spells in some sense.

Druitt: both. The base damage from a staff will generally be higher than other weapon loadouts, which will give your DS damage a slight boost. In addition the staff is a good weapon for quickly generating life force to get you into DS faster. It’s an added bonus that the staff itself is a very solid weapon choice for a build that’s trying to maximize the effectiveness of DS.

technosatyr.3784:

Druitt: both. The base damage from a staff will generally be higher than other weapon loadouts, which will give your DS damage a slight boost. In addition the staff is a good weapon for quickly generating life force to get you into DS faster. It’s an added bonus that the staff itself is a very solid weapon choice for a build that’s trying to maximize the effectiveness of DS.

OK. I’ve heard that the axe is the fastest choice for building Life Force, though I really dislike the axe. (I run staff and scepter/dagger myself.)

Druitt.7629:

technosatyr.3784:

Druitt: both. The base damage from a staff will generally be higher than other weapon loadouts, which will give your DS damage a slight boost. In addition the staff is a good weapon for quickly generating life force to get you into DS faster. It’s an added bonus that the staff itself is a very solid weapon choice for a build that’s trying to maximize the effectiveness of DS.

OK. I’ve heard that the axe is the fastest choice for building Life Force, though I really dislike the axe. (I run staff and scepter/dagger myself.)

Well, let’s crunch some numbers….
There’s no offhand weapons that generate life force…
The description of axe#2 says that it generates 4% life force over 8 hits with an 8 sec cooldown, but last time I tested it it was actually coming out to 8% life force over 8 hits with an 8 sec cooldown. So we’ll be generous to the axe and say that it can generate 1% life force per second. If you have the reduced axe cooldown trait you can get that to 1.2% per second

The staff’s #1 ability generates 3% life force per hit. I don’t know off hand if that’s 3% per enemy hit, or just 3% for the attack. We’ll continue to be generous to the axe and assume that it’s 3% per attack. Attacks can happen every 3/4 of a second, which we’ll round up to 1 sec. The staff can therefore generate 3%/sec…and probably more if you have the staff cooldown trait. It’d generate a lot more than that if every mark detonation gave 3%….and if it’s 3% per target affected by a mark you could generate a LOT of lifeforce that way.

So, making all assumptions in the axe’s favor it generates only 1.2% per second while the staff generates lifeforce more than twice as fast at 3%/second. The axe does give the potential for faster burst generation of life force; gaining 8% in just a second or two, but then is on a cooldown.

I think part of the reason that DS necros like axes is that they’re typically used in power/crit heavy builds, which also work well for DS. By contrast the staff is a mediocre weapon for a power/crit build if you’re not going into DS a lot.

technosatyr.3784:

Druitt.7629:

technosatyr.3784:

Druitt: both. The base damage from a staff will generally be higher than other weapon loadouts, which will give your DS damage a slight boost. In addition the staff is a good weapon for quickly generating life force to get you into DS faster. It’s an added bonus that the staff itself is a very solid weapon choice for a build that’s trying to maximize the effectiveness of DS.

OK. I’ve heard that the axe is the fastest choice for building Life Force, though I really dislike the axe. (I run staff and scepter/dagger myself.)

Well, let’s crunch some numbers….
There’s no offhand weapons that generate life force…
The description of axe#2 says that it generates 4% life force over 8 hits with an 8 sec cooldown, but last time I tested it it was actually coming out to 8% life force over 8 hits with an 8 sec cooldown. So we’ll be generous to the axe and say that it can generate 1% life force per second. If you have the reduced axe cooldown trait you can get that to 1.2% per second

The staff’s #1 ability generates 3% life force per hit. I don’t know off hand if that’s 3% per enemy hit, or just 3% for the attack. We’ll continue to be generous to the axe and assume that it’s 3% per attack. Attacks can happen every 3/4 of a second, which we’ll round up to 1 sec. The staff can therefore generate 3%/sec…and probably more if you have the staff cooldown trait. It’d generate a lot more than that if every mark detonation gave 3%….and if it’s 3% per target affected by a mark you could generate a LOT of lifeforce that way.

So, making all assumptions in the axe’s favor it generates only 1.2% per second while the staff generates lifeforce more than twice as fast at 3%/second. The axe does give the potential for faster burst generation of life force; gaining 8% in just a second or two, but then is on a cooldown.

I think part of the reason that DS necros like axes is that they’re typically used in power/crit heavy builds, which also work well for DS. By contrast the staff is a mediocre weapon for a power/crit build if you’re not going into DS a lot.

Warhorn generates life force on the number 5 ability 1% per hit short range aoe. Focus also generates life force using the number 4 ability.

Regardless staff is very good at generating life force and it seems to be per hit not projectile so you can generate a lot when fighting multiple enemies that are grouped together.

Merkenary.9860:

Warhorn generates life force on the number 5 ability 1% per hit short range aoe. Focus also generates life force using the number 4 ability.

Regardless staff is very good at generating life force and it seems to be per hit not projectile so you can generate a lot when fighting multiple enemies that are grouped together.

Thank you for the correction; I don’t like the focus or warhorn personally, so I don’t use them. Was going by the short skill descriptions. Lets factor that into the math…

A warhorn, if you’re in range of an enemy for the full 10sec, can give you 10% life force over 10 seconds once every thirty seconds. The mastery trait gives 15% cooldown reduction, and an unspecified amount of duration increase (let’s assume it’s also 15%). So that would be 11.5(we’ll round up to 12)% life force every 25.5 seconds. That averages out to…around 0.47%/second (doing the math in my head).

A focus gives 3% and has a cooldown of 18 seconds. The mastery trait should reduce that cooldown by 20%…but according to the site and the forums that cooldown reduction isn’t happening. For the moment, lets assume it does actually work; that would give a cooldown of 14.4 seconds. It doesn’t specify whether it’s 3% per hit, or 3% for the single cast. Let’s make the same assumption here that we did with the staff: it’s only 3% per cast, not per target hit. That’d be about 1% every 4.8 seconds…or about .2%/second. To be generous let’s assume that this one actually gives the life force per bounce, and we’ll assume an average of 2 hits per casting (there’s a very high chance that there’ll be only one target or one target and the caster in range). That would double the LF/sec to 0.4%/sec.

Going back to our original totals:
Staff is 3%/sec (assuming no traits for cooldown reduction, no traits to make marks generate life force, and assuming that you only get 3% per cast, not per target)
Axe is 1.2%/sec (assuming that the current version of axe#2 which generates twice the life force listed in the tooltip is working as intended)
Warhorn could grant 0.47%/sec (assuming that you can stay close enough to your target for the full duration every time)
Focus would give 0.4%/sec (assuming that the trait for cooldown works, which it currently doesn’t, and assuming that it’s per bounce and an average number of hits/casting of 2. If we assume the max potential it could go up to .8%/sec)

That’d put the staff at 3%/sec while the next best combination is (at best) only 2%. If we reverse some of the assumptions we made against the staff it’s LF/sec could easily double.

Staff is still hands-down the winner.

You’re making an awful lot of assumptions without actually finding the correct numbers to back it up.

Axe 2 generates 8% LF roughly every 10s (the channel when timed is about 2s, presumably 2 and 1/4 like it shows in the cast time, + 8s CD), so 0.8% LF/s

Staff 1 generates 3% LF per target hit, every 3/4s, meaning it can (in theory) generate between 4% to 20% per second, of course you can also miss out right and generate nothing a lot of the time.

Dagger 1 generates 7% LF every 2s, so 3.5% LF/s.

Focus 4 will generate 15% LF (if all bounces hit) just over every 19s, so about .8% LF/s.

War horn 5 will generate between 1% and 5% per second, depending on how many targets are in melee range, leading to .32% LF/s at 1 target, to 1.6% LF/s at 5. Obviously war horn is the weapon least likely to apply the fully duration of its LF generation since you have to stay in melee range.

This means the most consistently high LF weapon set would be dagger/focus, as they both only need 1 target to reach their maximum lf generation, while in a crowd staff or dagger/warhorn would be better. (Or you could activate horn 5 then swap weapon set).
Again there are traits that modify durations and CD’s, cause marks to generate LF etc etc, and lots of things that make these numbers harder to directly apply to real situations.

(Also scepter generates like 0.18% to 0.9% per second, it’s pretty crap.)

I would like to clarify some things first. While I agree for the most part that your calculations are close to correct, your assumptions and information for some are still wrong. We should always assume that our hits hit all the time as well, simply because that would be far too much work discussing the “chances” of hitting someone for full duration of Axe2 or the easily dodgeable Staff1 at long range.

Warhorn
Warhorn5, Locust Swarm, procs life force per hit. Traited, this is 13%LF every 25.5s. Since it is per hit, if you are surrounded by 5 enemies, you can get up to 65%LF in 25s. This comes out to be under 3%LF/s, so is still beat by staff in its best case scenario.
Edit – Im sorry, you will get 65%LF/13s, which does, come out higher than Staff1, but the recast time you will have to wait another 12s of no LF gain to recast.
Focus
Focus4 procs 3% LF per hit, and you the player are also included as a hit. So every cast of Focus4 can proc up to 15%LF every 14s if traited (which does work). This comes well under Staff1, and thus Staff1 still wins.

Disclosure
The only thing that beats Staff1 in terms of pure LF gain (not counting Utils) is Dagger1, and even then, is outshined by Staff1 if a second enemy comes into your Staff1s LoS, since Staff1 will proc per hit as well. Let’s not even discuss the LF generating train wreck that is the Scepter.

Which is utter bullkitten.

Yeah I do wish life force gain was completely normalized across all weapon sets and would only change based on how you trait or set up utilities.

Anyway, for warhorn what you can do that works pretty nice is combine certain traits with it to become pretty tanky with Death Shroud in aoe situations.

Soul Reaping for bonus life force pool (each point being more effective health), 25% slower decay, and hell even locust swarm at 25% (which can proc from DS hp).

20 Curses for warhorn duration, 1% life force on crit, and fury on Death Shroud.

Then get some toughness, pop locust swarm and jump into death shroud and Life Transfer, your DS would probably stay strong for quite awhile with that gimmicky set up lol. =p

So basically axe 2 is broken as it should be 4% per hit from the tooltip and would equalize life force gain across all main hand weapons minus scepter which works based off of number of conditions- theoretically making it the best if all conditions were applied.

I don’t want to derail the conversation, but several posters have referred to the Staff’s piercing ability. I thought pierce could only hit a second target (which I use all the time), but can it hit a third and a fourth if all are lined up? I thought I read early-on about a two-target limit so haven’t really gone to the trouble to line up more. (Usually, by the time I get two lined up, the third is out of range.) Does it pierce as many targets as you can line up in range?

Zedekiel.3021:

I would like to clarify some things first. While I agree for the most part that your calculations are close to correct, your assumptions and information for some are still wrong. We should always assume that our hits hit all the time as well, simply because that would be far too much work discussing the “chances” of hitting someone for full duration of Axe2 or the easily dodgeable Staff1 at long range.

Warhorn
Warhorn5, Locust Swarm, procs life force per hit. Traited, this is 13%LF every 25.5s. Since it is per hit, if you are surrounded by 5 enemies, you can get up to 65%LF in 25s. This comes out to be under 3%LF/s, so is still beat by staff in its best case scenario.
Edit – Im sorry, you will get 65%LF/13s, which does, come out higher than Staff1, but the recast time you will have to wait another 12s of no LF gain to recast.
Focus
Focus4 procs 3% LF per hit, and you the player are also included as a hit. So every cast of Focus4 can proc up to 15%LF every 14s if traited (which does work). This comes well under Staff1, and thus Staff1 still wins.

Disclosure
The only thing that beats Staff1 in terms of pure LF gain (not counting Utils) is Dagger1, and even then, is outshined by Staff1 if a second enemy comes into your Staff1s LoS, since Staff1 will proc per hit as well. Let’s not even discuss the LF generating train wreck that is the Scepter.

Which is utter bullkitten.

Thank you for the corrections. I disagree that we should always assume that all the hits hit. If there were a skill that gave you 20% life force for every target hit, but it was a targeted AOE that took 10 seconds to cast and made a big glowy beacon for the entire 10 seconds it is not at all unreasonable to conclude that you’re going to miss with that ability fairly often. The way that the staff projectile is fired is certainly not optimal for the staff. It is fairly easy to dodge if you’re watching for it. But by and large mobs don’t dodge particularly often, and most players are unlikely to use a dodge solely to avoid a shot from the staff; they don’t hit particularly hard. Even if they do there’ll be another shot comign their way every 3/4 of a second, so they’ll run out of dodge pretty fast.

If we’re considering a dagger/focus combo then it’s reasonable to assume that all four bounces will land on someone; to use the dagger you’ll have to be in melee range anyhow. Though if you have one enemy at range it’s very possible that throwing a scythe at it will only hit once. I wasn’t aware that you got the life force when it hits an allied target. That being the case I agree that it’s reasonable to assume 5 total hits with that skill every 15 seconds. I’ll defer to you if you have proof that the talent affects the actual recharge time of the skill, but according to the bug list on the forums and the official wiki, it doesn’t. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper%27s_Touch

That would put the dagger/focus combo at around 4.5% lifeforce per second against 1 or more mobs. Staff would only be at 3% (maybe a little more with the staff cooldown trait), so would fall behind. If you ahd the staff trait for marks generating 3% life force I don’t think it would really increase that rate of generation against a single target; you can throw down the marks about as quickly as you can throw down staff#1 attacks. But every additional enemy that can be hit will add another 3%/second to the staff. My experience in WvW and PvE has shown that it’s very common to get more than one enemy in a fight at a time.

Also consider that we generate life force per kill. The staff is a good way to tag enemies to get kill credit. You can hit things close up or far away fairly easily. By contrast a dagger would make it a lot more difficult to successfully tag ranged targets (not impossible, but certainly more difficult) which means that the staff would generally lead to higher life force generation through kills.

From a game play perspective though I still generally prefer the staff. The staff basic attack is functionally very similar to the staff #1 attack: both ranged projectiles of similar speed. I personally dislike fundamentally switching combat styles in the middle of a fight; my brain just doesn’t adapt quick enough. So having staff with DS means a less jarring play experience for me. That said, I can see how other players might prefer the flexibility offered by having quick access to two different playstyles.

Overall it sounds like if your goal is maximixing DS effectiveness (including optimal LF generation) it would be best to stick with a Staff & Dagger/Focus as your weapon sets.

Druitt.7629:

I don’t want to derail the conversation, but several posters have referred to the Staff’s piercing ability. I thought pierce could only hit a second target (which I use all the time), but can it hit a third and a fourth if all are lined up? I thought I read early-on about a two-target limit so haven’t really gone to the trouble to line up more. (Usually, by the time I get two lined up, the third is out of range.) Does it pierce as many targets as you can line up in range?

According to the Wiki it can hit up to three targets:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necrotic_Grasp

technosatyr.3784:

According to the Wiki it can hit up to three targets:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Necrotic_Grasp

Oooo, so I do need to line them up. I’ll take a 200% increase in DPS when I can get it. (Two targets is very convenient in PvE: you need to kill a structure and there is at least one mob guarding it so you target the structure, then move until you’re also hitting the mob. You’re essentially killing the mob for free. Similarly for a boss and minion. Three will take more work.)

To get back on topic, it would also fill your Life Force faster.

axe mastery adds ~15% damage to your lifeblast.

The very fact that you refuse to test anything out in game, and rely on Wiki and the bug forum for your information tells me already that I should stop reading your posts. I would urge you all to stop doing this as well (reading the Wiki and Bug post that is) and test things out before coming onto the forums.

I would discuss the example you presented, but it was such a poor misrepresentation of what we are aiming at here, I will not even bother. Post with another, somewhat logical one, and I will respond to that. Ill give you a few weeks. In all honesty, who are you to judge whether or not the entire necro community is going to hit Focus4 only 2/5 times against someone, even if they are ranged?

First off, I’m going to explain why we should always assume that all hits proc. Whether we are talking about 1 or 5 persons is irrelevant however. The reason you do this is because you cannot factor in every single scenario there is, and we must (or should rather) always assume either, the best case, or the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario, there is 0LF gain, and is not much help for anyone looking for information. Best case, while it may not, and is not realistic, gives a much better example than what you are providing with your possibly, rather limited, “experience”. For all I care, some guy in PvP is using a pillar to block your Necrotic Grasps, effectively making your LF generating capabilities non existent. With that information, I can say that the Necrotic Grasp LF is approximately .05%/s. But, I can’t actually do that, just as you can’t.

Secondly, we do not need to “tag” mobs to obtain the LF when it does. If it dies while we are in the vicinity, we will obtain that LF. That vicinity is rather large, about 1200. And no, don’t you dare start to complain about being able to outrun the green globs, the LF gain is instant and you do not even need to get the globs.

Next, try out the traits in HoM. I don’t care if it wasn’t working for you 2 weeks ago, guess what, things have been fixed and changes have been done. I do not post anything on the forums without at least some testing on it. Perhaps you should do the same.

Fourth, Necrotic Grasp can hit up to a max of 5 targets. Each time this hit procs, you gain LF. However, Marks do not generate the same way. Marks will generate 3% LF when they are triggered.

You should do research and not limit yourself on your experiences alone, for the world does not revolve around you and your very tiny sample base of which you make poor assumptions from.